Voegele 1

Megan Voegele

Dr. Henley

ENGL 300-004

11/28/09

The Big Lebowski and the Dying Western Genre

In the 1998 Coen brothers film The Big Lebowski, “millionaire” Lebowski asks, “Is it...is

it, being prepared to do the right thing? Whatever the price? Isn’t that what makes a man?”. He

probably didn’t realize that the question could be expanded to the idea of the Western hero and

where he fits with the 90s culture. Cowboy movies have been around since the dawn of film-

producing time, each decade offering its own hero. The 90s gave us The Dude. The Big

Lebowski is at first glance about a man and his rug, but further reveals itself as a movie about a

man and how he is constantly trampled upon. Though the film initially sets itself up as a

stereotypical Western, the Dude fails as a representation of the classic Western hero because of

his passive character traits and inability to act unguided. Furthermore, the Dude’s failure

represents the death of the classic Western genre on a larger scale.

There are many different subdivisions of the Western genre ranging from the Classical

Westerns of the early 1900s and the contemporary and revisionist Westerns of the 60s to present

day. They feature overarching themes such as honor in the society, the struggle to cope in a

lawless world, and revenge against wrongdoing. Societal images of Western film include the

nomadic cowboy and horse, saloons, and the ever-popular damsel in distress. The classical

Westerns churned out and embellished this vision even before color film. Stagecoach (1939) is a
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prime example of this era, and it inspired many films to respond to and tweak the genre for years

to come.

The many elements of classic Westerns are demonstrated through the characters and

plotline of Stagecoach. The Ringo kid is one of the main characters, and though he is an outlaw,

he like many other “disrespectable” characters in the film are among the most noble and selfless.

His brother and father have been killed by Luke Plummer, and the kid intends to seek him out

and enact revenge. A stage coach discovers him and Marshall Curly has to arrest him, but later

becomes fond of him. Among this crew is a prostitute named Dallas who has been driven out of

town. The kid takes a liking to her and asks her to marry him, but she tells him that she won’t do

it unless he drops his plot to avenge his father and brother. He grudgingly agrees, but then they

are intercepted by approaching Indians. After a series of gunfights and other events, the

stagecoach arrives in Lordsburg where Plummer lives. The Kid decides to break his agreement

with Dallas, and murders Plummer and his two brothers in a gun fight. The film ends with the

Kid not getting punished and being allowed to escape.

The Big Lebowski may not be as dramatic in its representation of the West since it

features modern Los Angeles, but many of the elements are still there. The film opens with the

Stranger’s narrative against the song “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and a backdrop of the city. The

Stranger is the ultimate gentleman cowboy, complete with thick accent, boots and hat. He pipes

out quirky sayings such as “that about wraps ‘er up” with a heavy Western drawl. There is a

general discordant feel to the movie, as none of the characters mix well together. “Watching it

amble along is enough of a treat, since the Coens populate this story with oddballs and bowling

balls of such comic variety,” is how Janet Maslin describes the film in her general review. This is
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even more emphasized by the lack of effective law enforcement that the Dude struggles with,

also reminiscent of Western films.

In many ways, the Dude does fit in with the Western hero role. When the Jackie Treehorn

thugs raid his house and pee on his rug, he eventually ends up seeking out an answer. Like the

Ringo Kid and his family, the Dude has been personally wronged and must resolve the issue. As

Amrys Williams says in his article, “the Dude is unencumbered by the corrupt politics of the

kidnapping: he is looking only to find the responsible parties, not to lay blame in the way which

best suits his own self-interest” (5). In this way the Dude is a sort of noble character. Some

would argue that his casualness adds to his heroic appeal. Williams claims that “[t]he Dude is

the only character who seeks true justice” (5). However, The Dude’s passive character traits

work against him in his pursuit of the hero role.

Throughout the entire film, the Dude’s masculinity is threatened, and he cannot overcome

this challenge. Everyone from the Big Lebowski himself to Jesus Quintana verbally degrade him.

Jesus is an example of the coarse and sexualized male, and is most successful at making the

Dude look faded and weak in contrast. The Dude’s largest problem is that he represents an era

that is dead. He’s long-haired, wears baggy clothes, and he has no real goals. All he wants to do

is smoke pot and drink his White Russians. His pacifist attitude gives him an aimlessly

wandering life, and does not help him achieve anything. As Comer says in his article, “ [i]n the

case of the Dude’s pacifism, the painful fact is that his presence does not hinder violence.

Instead, the Dude is complicit with the violence that kills Donny.” So the one thing the Dude

wants is something he does not accomplish. A hero cannot be a defeated and deflated character

—it’s just counter- intuitive.

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It is true that The Dude wants his rug back, but he wouldn’t have done anything about the

situation if it weren’t for Walter. Walter is the force that often spurs the Dude into action. When

they are sitting at the bowling alley and the audience is first introduced to him, he emphasizes

that the rug really pulled the room together. Walter tells him, “I’m talking about drawing a line

in the sand, Dude.” This scene shows Walter’s dominance over both Donny and the Dude. It is

only after Walter pesters him about it that the Dude seeks out the Big Lebowski to get

compensation for the rug (perhaps out of fear that Walter would do it himself). A real Western

hero would not have needed a kick to get going after his offender. A man like the Ringo kid

would have been hot on their tails and ready for a gun fight, whereas the Dude always preaches

“take it easy.”

The Dude is in fact dominated by any character he is in a scene with. When he first meets

Maude, she disarms him by launching into a feminist rant: “without batting an eye a man will

refer to his ‘dick’ or his ‘rod’ or his ‘johnson.’” She always controls the conversation, and often

ends up confusing him. He repeats her words back at her since he is barely capable at holding an

insightful conversation. She eventually uses him to get the foundation’s money back and to

impregnate herself. She tells him, “I don’t want the father to be someone I have to see socially,

or who’ll have any interest in rearing the child himself.” In this way she uses the fact that he is a

lazy bum to her advantage, and achieves what she wants and is done with him. Maude is the

character that truly emasculates him, but when he learns what she’s done he simply stands there

in silence. Any real cowboy would have been horrified, since part of the heroic image is being

proud and masculine.

Stagecoach demonstrates the reversal of the roles portrayed here in a more traditional

“male-dominates-female” scenario. The Ringo Kid initially consents to give up his quest for
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revenge by marrying Dallas the prostitute (a female-demeaning role), but he doesn’t follow

through. He decides to murder the Plummers anyway and does not give in to the female will. His

choice is seen as the masculine way to do things that resonates strongly in Western culture. He

also evades the law, and when he walks away from punishment it could be interpreted as a way

of “sticking it to the man.”

The Dude continues to be emasculated and dominated by the German nihilists. He has

dream sequences where they chase after him with large pairs of scissors, threatening to castrate

him. The Dude’s true passivity is revealed in the scene where they are confronted by the nihilists

after Bunny has returned. They demand their money, and Walter is extremely offended,

proclaiming “What’s mine is mine.” The Dude attempts to opt for the easy way out and starts

digging in his pockets to give them his four dollars, but Walter won’t have it.

If any of the characters typify the “Ringo kid” kind of cowboy, it would be Walter. It is

clear that Walter is more aggressive and assertive than any of the other characters, but he is

placed on a lower level of importance than the Dude. Since his character is muted by a lead role

pacifist, the film fails at representing a clear picture of the Good Old Western. By making the

Dude the main character, the Coen brothers have implied that his passive traits are the most

significant in the movie.

The Stranger’s character is also an attempt at personifying the Western hero role. At the

concluding scene, The Dude is shown throwing back drink after drink, and the Stranger is

speaking to him. He’s dressed in full cowboy gear and dispenses little pearls of wisdom as the

all-knowing narrator. He becomes a sort of omniscient voice that does not act in the movie but

remains as a sort of half-hearted guide. He is modest and does not swear, and he does not order
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an alcoholic drink. He even goes so far as to ask The Dude not to swear so much. The Stranger

settles into a role that is altruistic and yet horrifically flat.

This calls to question what the perfect Western hero is. On the one hand there is the

gentleman cowboy, Stranger, and on the other side is the aggressive shooting cowboy, Ringo kid.

It seems there are contradicting views on what is ideal. The first is a call for the noble and

modest hero. The second is a throwback to the masculine role that so many movie-cowboys

fulfill.

It is perhaps because of the contradicting images of the ideal cowboy that the Western

genre itself has been muddled, and the “classic” Western has been lost ever since the 30s. It is

now been taken over with the revisionist and modern movements, and even broken down further

into stranger categories like acid Westerns and horror Westerns. A lot of the modern Westerns

question the images and stereotypes represented in the classics, and they have replaced them

with a more serious undertone. Many take place in modern settings, like the film Brokeback

Mountain. Brokeback Mountain heavily contradicts the classic image by presenting its audience

with a homosexual couple. This is considered an ultimate betrayal of masculinity by some.

“Western” has now leaped out into areas so far from where it started, including animated series

like “Cowboy Bebop”, a science fiction western. The series includes many of the Western

themes such as the bounty hunters and the cowboy violence, but distributes the action on an

entirely different plane (literally—it’s in space).

The vast diversity of the genre has given the Dude a chance at fulfilling at least one

Western representation, and yet he doesn’t. His character approaches neither Ringo kid nor

gentleman Stranger, because he is passive and yet vulgar all at once. He seems to fit in nowhere.

He wanders through the movie getting passed from character to character, never acting, and
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never deciding. His conversation is minimal and does not contribute many ideas to the table. He

just seems to “exist”—He is not a hero but just an average guy. It is as the Stranger says: “…and

even if he was a lazy man, and the Dude was certainly that—quite possibly the laziest in Los

Angeles county…” He is no gentleman, either. He is very ego-centric, and his selfishness is

clearly evident when the mortician offers him and Walter the most modestly priced receptacle.

Walter blows up when he learns it is $180, and the Dude wholeheartedly agrees with him, saying

“Hey man, don’t you have something else you could put it in?” Ironically, neither of them seem

to care much for a friend they have just lost.

So if the Dude cannot be considered a Western hero, can he be considered any type of

hero at all? He cannot be considered a Byronic hero; he lacks the high intelligence, charisma and

dark attributes that are associated with it. He is not a tragic hero since he is not idealized in any

way, and there is no ‘one’ decision that leads to his downfall. He is not a Romantic hero, who is

generally defined as a character that individually triumphs over the limitations of social

conventions. The only thing that he could be considered is an antihero, because he rejects all of

the traits of a hero. He has no concern for others, and “all the Dude ever wanted…was his rug

back…not greedy,” as he says when Jackie Treehorn has drugged him. It is true that the Dude is

not judgmental, and this is where the audience draws a kind of strange sympathy for the

character.

Just as the Dude’s character is muddled and clouds the movie’s representation, the classic

Western genre as the world once knew it is dead. This is even ambiguously stated in The Big

Lebowski through the dying elder Sellers. As Walter and The Dude come in to interrogate Larry,

Walter speaks to elder Sellers who is on an iron lung. He wrote many episodes of the 60’s TV

Western series Branded. Walter pays his homage with a few emotional words, and goes on about
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his business. The Coen brothers have subtly placed this image in the movie, and it has rather

tragic implications; the West isn’t what it was anymore.

The revisionist and modern movements will continue to bring new concepts to Western

films, and the genre will constantly morph. The Stranger provides a very telling line in his final

narrative: “the human comedy keeps perpetuatin’ itself, down through the generations, westward

the wagons, across the sands a time until—“ Until what, exactly?
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Works Cited

Comer, TA. "" This Aggression Will Not Stand": Myth, War, and Ethics in" The Big

Lebowski." SubStance 34.2 (2005): 98-117. JSTOR Arts and Sciences VII

Collection. Web. 20 Nov. 2009.

Maslin, Janet. "A Bowling Ball's-Eye View of Reality." Rev. of The Big Lebowski. The

New York Times 6 Mar. 1998. The New York Times, 6 Mar. 1998. Web. 19 Nov.

2009.

The Big Lebowski. Dir. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Perf. Jeff Bridges, John Goodman and

Julianne Moore. PolyGram Video, 1998. DVD.

Stagecoach. Dir. John Ford. Perf. John Wayne, Claire Trevor. Warner Home Video,

1997. VHS

Williams, Amrys O. ”The Dude Abides: Western Influences in The Big Lebowksi.” 11 Dec. 2001